Apropos of nothing, Joe Oliver’s office released “a statement from Minister Joe Oliver on the NDP’s carbon tax plan” late this afternoon. It is mostly a review of the familiar talking points.

Here, again, are the reasons why this is farcical.

Mr. Oliver first ran as a candidate for the Conservative party in 2008 when the Conservative party’s platform included a promise to “work with the provinces and territories and our NAFTA trading partners in the United States and Mexico, at both the national and state levels, to develop and implement a North America-wide cap and trade system for greenhouse gases and air pollution, with implementation to occur between 2012 and 2015.”

I’ve asked Mr. Oliver’s office whether he objected to cap-and-trade at the time.